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XVIII 
THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN 
ARMENIA 


ie the course of the eleventh century large numbers of the 
Armenian population left their homeland and migrated west and 
southwest of the Euphrates, to regions already settled by Arme- 
nians at an earlier period. The first important wave of emigrants 
accompanied the kings of Vaspurkan, Ani, and Kars, and other 


Extracts and translations of the principal Armenian sources are collected in RHC, Arm., I. 
To these should be added: V. A. Hakopian, Short Chronicles (in Armenian; 2 vols., Erevan, 
1951-1956; the first volume of this publication has a critical edition of the Chronology of 
Hetoum [pp. 65-101], attributed by the editor to king Hetoum II instead of to Hetoum 
{‘‘Hayton”’] the historian); and R. P. Blake and R. N. Frye (eds.), History of the Nation of the 
Archers (the Mongols) by Grigor of Akanc* (Cambridge, Mass., 1954). 

The anonymous Cilician Chronicle, preserved in a manuscript of the Mekhitharist 
Library in Venice and referred to by Alishan as the Royal Chronicle, is a most important 
source. The complete photographs, made for the late Robert P. Blake and lent by him to 
Professor Joseph Skinner, were put at the author’s disposal by the latter, together with his 
translation; she, wishes to express.-her sincere thanks to him. Since the present chapter was 
written, the Venice manuscript has been published by S. Akelian, under the title Chronicle of 
the General Sempad (in Armenian; Venice-San Lazzaro, 1956), Miss Der Nersessian, the 
author of this chapter, has retained in both the text and the footnotes the former designation 
of “Cilician Chronicle” but has given the page references to Akelian’s edition. For an identi- 
fication of this published text with Alishan’s “Royal Chronicle” and its attribution to Sempad, 
ef, S. Der Nersessian, ‘“The Armenian Chronicle of the Constable Smpad or of the ‘Royal 
Historian’,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XIII (1959), 143-168. 

Among the sources one should include the colophons of manuscripts, which often give 
valuable historical information: Garegin I Hovsepian, Colophons of Manuscripts (in Armenian; 
Antilias, 1951), with colophons down to the year 1250; and L. S. Khachikian, Colophons of 
Armenian Manuscripts of the XIV th century (in Armenian; Erevan, 1950). For various charters 
and other acts, see: V. Langlois, Le Trésor des chartes d’Arménie (Paris, 1863); Cornelio 
Desimoni, “Actes passés en 1271, 1274 et 1279 4 l'Aias (Petite Arménie) et 4 Beyrouth par 
devant des notaires génois,” Archives de l’orient latin, I, 434-534; and L. Alishan, L’Armeno- 
Veneto (2 vols., Venice - San Lazzaro, 1893). 

The principal Syriac sources are the anonymous chronicle translated by A. S. Tritton 
and H. A. R. Gibb, “The First and Second Crusades from an Anonymous Syriac Chronicle,” 
Fournal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1933, pp. 69-101, 273-305; Michael the Syrian (tr. J. B. 
Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d’ Antioche, 3 vols., Paris, 1899- 
1903; Armenian version, tr. V. Langlois, Chronique de Michel le Grand, Venice, 1868); and 
Bar Hebraeus (tr. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Chronography of Gregory Abt ’I Faraj .. . 
commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, Oxford, 1932) 

The principal Arabic sources are: Abi'l-Fida’, Kitab al-mukhtasar (extracts in RHC, Or., 
I, t-115); Ibn-al-Athir, Al-kdmil f¢-t-ta’rith (extracts i in RHC, Or., I, 187-744, and II, part 
1); Ibn-al-Qalanis!, Dhail ta’rikk Dimashg (extracts translated by H. A. R. Gibb, The Damas- 
cus Chronicle of the Crusades, London, 1932, and by R. Le Tourneau, Damas de 1075 d 1154, 
Paris, 1952); al-Jazari, Hawdaith ax-zamdn (extracts and summaries by J. Sauvaget, La 

630 


Ch. XVII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 631 


minor rulers whose lands had been seized by the Byzantine em- 
perors and who had been granted, in return, domains in Cappadocia 
and Asia Minor. A second wave followed the conquest of Armenia 
by the Selchtkid Turks and the disaster of Manzikert in 1071. 
It is probable that by far the greater number of those who fled the 
Turkish domination sought refuge in the cities and regions of the 
Taurus, the Anti-Taurus, and northern Syria held by Armenian 
chieftains, where they were joined towards the end of the century 
by some Armenians of Cappadocia who moved southward after 
the death of the last Armenian kings. A considerable number still 
remained, however, north of the Taurus; according to the Gesta 
when the crusaders approached Caesarea of Cappadocia (Kayseri) 
they entered “the country of the Armenians”, and when they 
reached Comana and Coxon they were welcomed by the Armenian 
population of these cities. 

In order to secure the defense of their eastern borders, the 
Byzantine emperors had appointed some Armenians as governors 
of important cities, entrusted them with the command of their 
armies, or ceded large tracts of land to them. But gradually, taking 
advantage of the unsettled conditions of these outer regions and the 
weakening of the central authority, some of ‘these chieftains had 
broken the ties that bound them to the empire. At the time of the 


Chronique de Damas, Paris, 1949); Abi-~Shimah, Kitab ar-raudatain (RHC, Or,, I1V-V); 
Kamal-ad-Din, Zubdat al-halab ft ia’rikh Halab (tr. E. Blochet, “Histoire d’Alep,” ROL, 
II-VI, 1895-1898); al-Maqrizi, 4/-mawd'iz wa-l-i‘tibar ft dhikr al-khitat wa-l-athar (tr. 
E. M. Quatremére, Histoire des sultans mamlouks del Egypie, 2 vols.) Paris, 1837-1845); and 
al-Maqrizl, Akhbar Misr (tr. E. Blochet, Histoire @’ Egypte, Paris, 1908). In Persian, there is 
Ibn-Bibi, Saljaq-ndmek (ed. Th. Houtsma, Leyden, 1902; extracts tr. C. Schéfer, Paris, 1889). 
There is a German translation of Ibn-Bibi by H. W. Duda, Die Seltschukengeschichte des 
Ibn Bibi, Copenhagen, 1959. 

The Byzantine and western writers include; Anna Comnena, Alexiad (ed. B. Leib, 3 vols., 
Paris, 1937-1943); Cedrenus-Skylitzes, Historiarum compendium, vol. I1 (CSHB, Bonn, 1839); 
Nicetas Choniates, Historia (CSHB, Bonn, 1835); and William of Tyre, Historia rerum in 
pariibus transmarinis gestarum, and French translation, L’Estoire de Eracles empereur (RHC, 
Oce,, I). : 

Among the principal secondary sources which should be consulted in addition to the 
general histories of the crusades are the following: Leonce M. Alishan, Léon le Magnifique, 
premier roi de Sissouan ou de l’Arméno-Cilicie (Venice, 1888); Leonce Alishan, Sissouan ou 
L’ Arméno-Cilicie (Venice, 1899); Claude Cahen, La Syrie du nord a l’époque des croisades et la 
principauté franque d’ Antioche (Paris, 1940); F. Chalandon, Les Comnéne: Fean II Comnéne et 
Manuel Comnéne (Paris, 1913); N. Iorga, Bréwe histoire de la Petite Arménie (Paris, 1930); 
J. Laurent, “‘Les Croisés et l’Arménie,” Handes Amsorya, XLI (1927), 885-906; G. G. Mikae- 
lian, Istoriya Rilikiiskogo armyanskogo gosudarstvo (Erevan, 1952); J. de Morgan, Histoire du 
peuple arménien (Nancy-Paris, 1919); Malachia Ormanian, Azkabadoum (in Armenian), vols. 
I and II (Constantinople, 1912-1914); M. Tchamtchian, History of the Armenians (in Ar- 
menian; 3 vols., Venice, 1784-1786); and Fr. Tournebize, Histoire politique et religieuse de 
l Arménie (Paris, n.d.). 


2 For the Selchtikid victory at Manzikert, see volume I of the present work, chapter V, 
pp. 148~150; for the Armenian princelings in 1097, see tbid., chapter IX, pp. 299-301. 


632 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES Ir 


First Crusade there were many such chieftains, some in key posi- 
tions, who gave important assistance to the Latin armies. The 
governor of Melitene, Gabriel, was an Armenian of the Greek 
Orthodox faith whose daughter Morfia married Baldwin of Le 
Bourg. The Armenian Constantine was lord of Gargar. Tatoul had 
been appointed governor of Marash by Alexius Comnenus and was 
confirmed in this position by the crusaders. Ablgharib (Abi-I- 
Gharib) was master of Bira (Birejik). At Edessa, where the Arme- 
nian element was particularly numerous, the governor was Toros, 
son-in-law of Gabriel of Melitene, who had received the title 
curopalates from Alexius Comnenus. 

However, the most important chieftain in these parts had been 
Philaretus, whose authority, at the time of his greatest power, 
between 1078 and 1085, had extended over a vast area which com- 
prised the cities of Melitene, Marash, Edessa, and Antioch. After 
the death of Philaretus, the remnants of his armies gathered around 
Kogh Vasil, ruler of Kesoun and Raban, who for a time also held 
Hromgla. Among those who fought at his side was Dgha Vasil, 
whom he adopted and who succeeded him. 

The Armenian possessions in Cilicia, which were to endure much 
longer than these ephemeral principalities, were at first far less 
important. Here also the Armenian immigration had begun at a 
fairly early date. The historian Mkhitar of Ayrivank records that 
in the first years of the tenth century fifty noblemen of Sasoun, 
fleeing from the Turks, had crossed the Taurus; doubtless they 
were accompanied by their followers as well as by their families. By 
the latter part of the century the Armenians of Cilicia and northern 
Syria were sufficiently numerous to warrant the appointment of a 
bishop at Tarsus and of another at Antioch.? This increase in the 
population coincided with the Byzantine reconquest and, according 
to Bar Hebraeus, the Byzantines stationed the Armenians “‘in the 
fortresses which were in Cilicia, and which they took from the 
Arabs.” No names of Armenian officials are recalled, however, 
before the second half of the eleventh century, when the population 
had been further increased by the arrival of new immigrants from 
Cappadocia and Armenia, When in 1067 the Turks, haying pil- 
laged Iconium, were returning home by way of Cilicia, Romanus 
Diogenes, in order to stop them, sent the commander of Antioch, 
the Armenian Khachadour, to Mamistra, but there is no mention 
of any local Armenian chieftain. There may have been an Armenian 
governor at Tarsus before 1072, for according to the Cilician 

2 Etienne Asotik de Tarén, Histoire universelle (tr. F. Macler, Paris, 1917), p. 141. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 633 


Chronicle, whose account differs from that of Matthew of Edessa, 
the anti-catholicus George came there, seeking the protection of 
Kakig, son of Kourkén. Nothing further is known about this 
Kakig, and a few years later, in 1079, the governor of Tarsus was 
Ablgharib, 

Abigharib belonged to a family which had long been in the service 
of Byzantium. His grandfather, Khoul Khachig, prince of the region 
of Tornavan in the province of Vaspurkan, was a vassal of the 
Byzantine emperors; his father, Hasan, had served under Michael 
V; and Ablgharib himself had received the governorship of Tarsus 
from Michael VII. Ablgharib also held the two important forts of 
western Cilicia, Babaron and Lampron, which he ceded later to one 
of his generals, Oshin, founder of the powerful feudal family of the 
Hetoumids. 

Some modern historians have identified Oshin I with the 
general Aspietes, whose exploits are told by Anna Comnena, and 
with Ursinus, mentioned by Radulf of Caen and Albert of Aix 
(Aachen), and have credited him with all their deeds. But as 
Laurent has convincingly proved, there are no valid grounds for 
this identification and very little is known about him.? According 
to Samuel of Ani, Oshin had left his hereditary possessions in the 
region of Ganja in 1073, had come to Cilicia accompanied by his 
family and his followers, and had wrested Lampron from the 
Saracens. But the Armenian sources that are closer to the Hetou- 
mids speak of him merely as one of the faithful chieftains of Abl- 
gharib to whom the latter ceded Lampron,* while Matthew of 
Edessa and the Cilician Chronicle mention him only in passing, 
together with two other princelings who came to the assistance of 
the crusaders when they crossed the Taurus. 

The early history of the rival family of the Roupenids is equally 
obscure. Samuel of Ani considers Roupen I a relative of the last 
Bagratid ruler, but he was, in all probability, a chieftain of minor 
importance who, some time after the death of king Gagik (1071), 
had settled in the region of Gobidara, where we find his son Con- 
stantine in the last years of the eleventh century.® It was this Con- 
stantine who, by seizing, in 1091, the castle of Vahka on the 
Gék river, laid the foundations of Roupenid rule in Cilicia, We 


8]. Laurent, ‘“‘Arméniens de Cilicie: Aspiétés, Oschin, Ursinus,” Mélanges Schlumberger, 
I (1924), 159-168. Oshin and “Ursinus” may be the same man; Aspietes is clearly distinct. 

4 Garegin I Hovsepian, Colophons, col. 342, 552; L. Alishan, Hayabadoum (in Armenian; 
Venice, rgor), II, 414. 

5N. Adontz, ‘‘Notes arméno-byzantines: VI. L’aieul des Roubéniens,” Byxantion, X 
(935) 185-203. 


634 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II 


do not know the actual extent of his possessions. The historians 
speak in vague terms of his capture of many castles from the Turks; 
he probably had control over part of the mountainous region south- 
west of Vahka, perhaps as far as the Cilician Gates, for the Cilician 
Chronicle in referring to a letter sent by Constantine and Toros 
of Edessa to the crusaders seems to imply that the peaceful passage 
through Podandus was due to the influence of these two men.® 

Constantine, Oshin of Lampron, and Pazouni, as well as the 
monks living in the Black Mountains, in the Taurus, provisioned 
the crusaders during the siege of Antioch, and they all welcomed 
as liberators the Christian armies who had come to fight against 
the Moslems. These feelings are reflected in the colophons of 
contemporary Armenian manuscripts; the scribes hail the “valiant 
nation from the west” whose arrival shows that ‘God has visited 
his people according to his promise”, they speak again of “the 
valiant nation of the Franks who... through divine inspiration 
and the solicitude of the omnipotent God took Antioch and Jeru- 
salem.’” The crusaders, too, were happy to find a friendly popula- 
tion and at first rewarded the services rendered to them, but the 
cordial relations lasted only as long as the interests of both parties 
did not clash. 

In order to obtain a clear idea of future development in the 
Armenian principality, one should consider the outstanding geo- 
graphical features of Cilicia. The Armenian possessions, though 
limited, were of strategic importance. A son-in-law of Oshin who 
had succeeded Ablgharib at Tarsus was not able to hold it against 
the Turks, but the fortresses of Babaron and Lampron, erected on 
crags at the foot of Bulgar Dagh, could not be taken. Thus the 
Hetoumids commanded the southern exit of the Cilician Gates, the 
route which led directly to Tarsus. Vassals of Byzantium, to which 
they remained faithful, they do not seem to have had marked ambi- 
tion for territorial expansion. In the long struggle with the Roupe- 
nids, which came to an end only through the marriage of Hetoum I 
to the daughter and heiress of Leon II, the Roupenids were almost 
always the aggressors, and when the Hetoumids attacked it was 
usually within the framework of Byzantine invasions and not as an 
independent act. The aim of the Roupenids, on the other hand, was 
to become masters of Cilicia. 

The Cilician plain is divided into two main parts: the lower or 
western plain stretches from the foothills of the Taurus to the sea, 


® Cilician Chronicle, p. 102; cf. also the Anonymous Syriac Chronicle, pp. 70-71. 
7 Garegin 1 Hovsepian, Colophons, cols. 261, 265. 


Ch. XVI THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 635 


and is watered by the Cydnus, Sarus, and Pyramus; its principal 
cities in the medieval period were Adana and especially Tarsus; 
Seleucia was its chief port. The upper or eastern plain is separated 
from the western and the sea by the ridge called Jabal Nir. The 
city of Mamistra commands the passage of the Pyramus on its way 
from the upper to the lower plain; Anazarba and Sis are farther 
north on tributaries of the Pyramus. To the east the plain is limited 
by the range of the Amanus, and it is here that Cilicia was more 
vulnerable, for the passes which lead into Syria are broader and 
shorter than the famous Cilician Gates. 

The policy followed, with varying fortunes, by the Roupenid 
princes was determined to a great extent by the configuration of 
the land. It was an absolute economic necessity to descend from 
the mountain strongholds into the arable lands of the plain; to have 
control of the large cities which were situated on the trade routes; 
to reach the coast and have an outlet on the sea. To protect them- 
selves from attacks from the northwest and west complete control 
of the Cilician Gates was essential, and this brought them into 
conflict with the Hetoumids; to safeguard their eastern borders 
control of the passes of the Amanus was essential, and this brought 
them into conflict with Antioch. But their principal adversary during 
the entire twelfth century was Byzantium, to which Cilicia belonged. 

Toros I (1100-1129), the son and successor of Constantine, 
proceeded carefully. He refrained from taking part in the struggle 
between the Greeks and Latins over the possession of the principal 
cities of the plain, and captured only Anazarba. He strengthened 
that city and made it the seat of his barony; he erected a church 
dedicated to St. George and St. Theodore on the ruined remains 
of which part of his dedicatory inscription is still visible. He 
remained on good terms with the Byzantines in spite of the seizure 
of Anazarba and the plunder and destruction of Heraclea, where 
he killed the sons of Mandalé to avenge the murder of king Gagik. 
His chief concern, however, was to maintain friendly relations with 
the Latin princes who had been enlarging their possessions at the 
expense of the Armenians. 


In 1098 Baldwin of Boulogne became master of Edessa, following 
the murder of Toros by the populace. In 1104 Tatoul of Marash, 
after successfully resisting the attacks of Bohemond I and his 
kinsman Richard of the Principate, was forced to cede the city to 
Joscelin I of Courtenay. Between the years 1115 and 1118 Baldwin 
of Le Bourg seized the domains of Dgha Vasil and those of 


636 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II 


Ablgharib, lord of Bira; he imprisoned Constantine of Gargar in 
the fortress of Samosata, where he died; he captured Ravendan near 
Cyrrhus, and the territories ruled by Pakrad.§ Thus, with minor 
exceptions, all the Armenian possessions outside Cilicia passed into 
Latin hands, and it must have become evident to Toros I that if he 
wished to remain free and master of his lands, he would have to be 
careful not to antagonize his powerful and ambitious neighbors. 

Therefore, realizing the weakness of his position, he pursued a 
cautious policy. His land had been plundered by the Moslemsin 
1107 and again in 1110/1111 when a larger army descended on 
Anazarba without meeting any resistance. Toros kept aloof also 
from the battles fought against the Turks in 1112/1113 within his 
own territories, but in 1118 he took part in the siege and capture 
of ‘Azaz by Roger of Antioch, sending a contingent of troops under 
the leadership of his brother Leon. Toros gave assistance also to 
Arab, one of the sons of Kilij Arslan 1, when Arab revolted against 
his brother Mas‘tid. Mas‘id was the son-in-law and ally of Giimiish- 
tigin Ghazi, the Danishmendid, which was probably the principal 
reason for the Danishmendid invasion of Cilicia early in the reign 
of Leon I (1129-1137). While Giimishtigin Ghazi was invading 
from the north, Bohemond II of Antioch entered Cilicia from the 
east. The reasons for the break with Antioch are not known; the 
anonymous Syrian Chronicle reports that Armenian brigands had 
been plundering the lands of Giimiishtigin Ghazi and that Bohe- 
mond had suffered similarly. The two invading armies, unaware 
of one another’s advance, met in the plain north of Mamistra, and 
Bohemond was killed in the encounter. While the Franks, deprived 
of their leader, hastily retreated, Leon occupied the passes and killed 
many of the fugitives. Gimishtigin Ghazi withdrew without pur- 
suing Leon, but returned the following year (1131), seized several 
forts, and imposed a tribute on the Armenians. 

Leon did not long remain inactive. In 1132, taking advantage 
of the fact that both Gimiishtigin Ghazi and the Franks were 
occupied elsewhere, he seized Mamistra, Adana, and Tarsus, and 
he followed these conquests in 1135 with the capture of Sarvan- 
tikar, a fortress built near the point of convergence of the northern 
routes that crossed the Amanus. His growing power, and especially 
the foothold he had gained on the Syrian border, alarmed the 
Franks; the combined forces of Raymond of Poitiers, the new prince 
of Antioch, and Baldwin of Marash, with contingents sent by king 
Fulk of Jerusalem, entered Cilicia. Leon, assisted by his nephew 

§ See volume I of the present work, chapter XII, pp. 387-391, 405. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 637 


Joscelin II of Edessa, was at first able to withstand their attack, 
but finally was surprised in an ambush and was taken to Antioch. 
His captivity lasted only two months. The menace of a Byzantine 
expedition, directed against Antioch as well as Cilicia, probably 
hastened his release and, according to Cinnamus, the Latins and 
Armenians even established some kind of alliance against the 
Greeks. 

As soon as he was set free, Leon rushed to the western borders of 
Cilicia and laid siege to Seleucia in the vain hope of stopping the 
Greek advance, but was soon forced to raise the siege. In a rapid 
march across the plain John Comnenus recovered Tarsus, Adana, 
Mamistra, and finally Anazarba, Leon’s only point of stiff resis- 
tance. John also took Tall Hamdan and, without pausing to pursue 
Leon and his sons, who had fled to the mountains, marched on 
Antioch. The conquest of Cilicia was completed in the winter of 
1137-1138; Vahka fell in spite of its strong position and the 
prowess of a nobleman called Constantine; the fort of Raban and 
the surrounding areas were also seized. Leon, his wife, and two of 
his sons, Roupen and Toros, were carried in chains to Constan- 
tinople, and Armenian rule in Cilicia seemed destroyed for ever. 

Very little is known about internal conditions during the Byzan- 
tine occupation. The Greek garrisons do not seem to have been 
very strong, for even before John’s return to Constantinople, while 
he was besieging Shaizar, the Selchiikid Mas‘id had seized and 
held Adana for a short time, carrying some of its inhabitants as 
captives to Melitene; and in 1138-1139 the Danishmendid emir 
Muhammad took Vahka and Gaban and various localities in the 
region of Garmirler (Red Mountains). But, with the captivity of 
Leon I, the center of Armenian resistance was destroyed; the only 
strong princes who remained in Cilicia, the Hetoumids and their 
allies, were vassals of Byzantium and always faithful to their 
suzerain, John crossed Cilicia peacefully at the time of his second 
expedition to the east (1142). When, after his death and the 
departure of his son Manuel, Raymond of Antioch captured some 
of the castles along the Syrian border, the Armenians of that area 
took no part in the battle, nor did they when the Byzantine forces 
sent by Manuel defeated Raymond. 

However, the situation was soon to change. Leon’s younger son, 
Toros, had been allowed to live at the imperial court after the 


® Nicetas Choniates, Historia: De Fohanne Comneno (CSHB, Bonn, 1835), pp. 29-33. The 
Cilician Chronicle (p. 160) and Sempad (RHC, Arm., I, 616) also mention three other local- 
ities: Khalij, Amayk, Tsakhoud. The first two have not been identified, the last is probably 
the province which lies roughly to the east of Sis. 


638 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II 


deaths of his father and his brother Roupen. He was then able to 
make useful contacts and to escape, probably in 1145. Neither the 
circumstances of his escape nor those of his arrival in Cilicia are 
clearly known; legendary and romantic stories distorted the facts 
and several traditions were already current in the following century. 
Toros probably came by sea to the principality of Antioch and 
entered Cilicia secretly. A Jacobite priest, Mar Athanasius, is 
reported to have led him by night to Amoudain, a castle on the 
river Pyramus, southeast of Anazarba, and from there he proceeded 
to the mountainous region which had been the stronghold of his 
family but which was still held by the Turks. He lived there in 
disguise, and little by little rallied around him the Armenians of 
this eastern section of Cilicia. His brother Stephen (Sdefané), who 
had been living at the court of his cousin Joscelin II of Edessa, 
also joined him, and in the course of a few years Toros recovered 
Vahka, the castles in the vicinity of Anazarba such as Amoudain, 
Simanagla, and Arioudzpert, and finally Anazarba, the seat of the 
Roupenid barony. These conquests were probably completed by 
1148, the date given by Michael the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus for 
the beginning of Toros II’s reign. 

Toros and his small band had fought with great courage and 
energy, and the general situation in the Levant had favored him. His 
Latin neighbors had not fully recovered from the destruction of 
Edessa and the losses suffered during the siege of Antioch; above 
all, the growing power of Nir-ad-Din forced them to concentrate 
their efforts on the defense of their own principalities. Joscelin IT 
of Edessa, the most powerful Latin prince of this area, was Toros’s 
friend, and the ties between the two cousins were further streng- 
thened when Toros married the daughter of Simon of Raban, one 
of Joscelin’s vassals. 

Toros had also been free from Moslem attacks. The armies of 
‘Ain-ad-Daulah, Kara Arslan, Mas‘tid, and Niir-ad-Din had seized 
the territories once held by Kogh Vasil, but they did not enter 
Cilicia. ‘Toros was thus able to strengthen his position. About the 
year 1151 he took Tall Hamdin and Mamistra, imprisoning the 
governor, Thomas. 

If the immediate neighbors of Cilicia were too busy to interfere 
with Toros’s progress, Byzantium could not allow him to keep the 
cities still claimed by the empire.t° In 1152 a Byzantine army under 


10 On Byzantine policies in Cilicia and Antioch, see volume I of the present work, chap- 
ter XIII, pp. 439-440, 445, and chapter XVI, pp. 530, 540-546, 560; see also above, chapter 
IV, pp. 130-137. 


Ch, XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 639 


the command of Manuel’s cousin Andronicus Comnenus, sup- 
ported by contingents from the Armenian chieftains of western 
Cilicia, besieged Mamistra. Toros sallied forth under cover of 
darkness, routed the Byzantine army, and took many prisoners. 
Andronicus fled to Antioch and from there returned to Constan- 
tinople. Among the prisoners were three of Byzantium’s principal 
Armenian allies: Oshin II of Lampron, Vasil of Partzapert, and 
Dikran of Bragana; Oshin’s brother, Sempad of Babaron, was killed 
in battle. Oshin was released after he had paid half of a ransom of 
40,000 tahegans and left his young son Hetoum as hostage. A 
marriage was negotiated between Hetoum and one of the daughters 
of Toros, who agreed to forego the remainder of Oshin’s ransom, 
counting it as his danghter’s dowry. 

Toros II was now master of a large section of the plain. No new 
expedition was sent to Cilicia; Manuel tried instead an indirect 
method of defeating Toros. At Manuel’s instigation Mas‘id of 
Iconium invaded Cilicia; he demanded that Toros recognize him 
as his suzerain and that Toros return to the Greeks the cities he had 
captured. Toros agreed to do the first, and since this was the only 
condition which directly interested Mas‘tid, he withdrew without 
further resort to arms. However, after Toros raided Cappadocia in 
the winter or early spring of 1154, Mas‘iid was quite ready to 
listen to Manuel’s renewed request, which was accompanied by 
costly gifts. The Moslem armies met with severe reverses. Toros’s 
brother Stephen, assisted by the Templars of Baghras (Gaston), 
surprised the general Ya‘qiib in the Syrian Gates, killed him, and 
routed his men. A terrible plague of gnats and flies decimated the 
Selchtikid forces before Tall Hamdiin, and the remnants of the 
army were destroyed by Toros on his return from a raid into enemy 
territory that had reached as far as Gabadonia.11 

The Byzantine plans had failed once again. Toros established 
cordial relations with Ma‘siid’s successor Kilij Arslan I]. When 
Stephen seized Coxon and Pertous, and supported the Christian 
population of Behesni, who had been aroused by the cruel treatment 
of their new governor, Toros recovered Pertous by a ruse and 
returned the city to Kilij Arslan. On his part Kilij Arslan, anxious 
to rally forces against Nir-ad-Din, made every effort to maintain 


41 Michael the Syrian, Chronique (tr. Chabot), III, 3113 Bar Hebraeus, Chronography (tr. 
Budge), p. 281. The Armenian sources do not mention an attack by Toros (RHC, Arm., I, t75). 
The Cilician Chronicle states that the enemy fled in disorder “‘as if they were pursuing their 
own selves. For Toros was not in his country; but had gone to Dzedz. And when he returned and 
saw how things were, they all gave thanks to God that they [the enemy] had been routed 
without arms or human combat” (p. 173). On the Selchikids and Danishmendids, see below 
chapter XIX, pp. 675~692. 


640 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES Ir 


peace with his Christian neighbors, and even sent ambassadors to 
Toros, as well as to Antioch and Jerusalem, with the idea of 
forming an alliance. 

Seeing that he could no longer count on the Selchtikids, Manuel 
turned to the Latins; he promised Reginald of Antioch to defray his 
campaign expenses if he would march against Toros, but once again, 
Byzantium did not obtain the desired results. For, having seized 
the castles of the Amanus taken by Toros from the Greeks, 
Reginald ceded them to the Templars, their previous owners, 
and when Manuel failed to send the promised sums, Reginald 
reversed his stand, allied himself with Toros, and the two princes 
raided Cyprus (1155). Toros remained on good terms with the 
Latins, and in 1157 took part in the allied attack on Shaizar and 
Harim. 

Byzantium did not immediately react to the plunder of Cyprus; 
the expedition prepared in great secret a few years later (1158) 
took Toros and Reginald completely by surprise. Warned by a 
Latin pilgrim, Toros had barely time to flee to a small castle built 
on an almost inaccessible crag called Dajig. The Byzantine armies 
swept through the Cilician plain without meeting any resistance. 
Reginald, fearing the emperor’s revenge, proceeded to Mamistra 
dressed in a penitent’s garb, and humbled himself before Manuel, 
promising to remain his vassal and to cede the citadel of Antioch. 
Shortly thereafter Toros also arrived dressed as a penitent; the 
Templars and Baldwin III, who in the meantime had come from 
Jerusalem, interceded for him. Toros promised submission; he 
presented to the emperor abundant supplies and horses for the army, 
and received his pardon; Manuel is said even to have bestowed 
upon him the title sedastos. 


Cilicia was once again under Byzantine domination. As in the 
days of Leon I, no sooner had Roupenid control extended into the 
plain than Byzantium had intervened. But the disaster this time 
was not complete. Toros II was free, his cavalry was still intact, and 
he retained his mountain strongholds, for Manuel realized that it 
was more important to have him in Cilicia, as a vassal who could 
take part in the fight against the Moslems, than in Constantinople 
as a captive. We thus see Armenian contingents in the Graeco- 
Latin expedition against Nir-ad-Din in 1159, and, the following 
year, among the allied troops led by John Contostephanus against 
Kilij Arslan. 

A break between the Greeks and Armenians, which might have 


Ch. XVII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 641 


had serious consequences, occurred in 1162. The governor of 
Tarsus, Andronicus Euphorbenus, invited Stephen to a feast, and 
when the latter’s body was found the next day outside the city 
gates, Andronicus was accused of the murder. Toros and Mleh 
immediately took up arms to avenge their brother; they massacred 
the garrisons of Mamistra, Anazarba, and Vahka. But in the face 
of the constant Moslem menace it was most important to maintain 
the alliance between the Christian forces. King Amalric of Jeru- 
salem assumed the role of mediator, as his predecessor had done; 
Andronicus was recalled and replaced by Constantine Coloman. 
Nor did Manuel raise any objections the following year when 
Toros helped the barons of Antioch to install Bohemond III, and 
to expel Constance, who had appealed for help to Coloman. Toros 
continued to fight side by side with the Greeks and the Latins. He 
joined the allied forces against Nir-ad-Din (1164) and he and his 
brother Mleh were among the few leaders who escaped the disaster 
of Harim, 

We have little information about the internal affairs of Cilicia 
during this period. The Byzantine occupation had no doubt 
strengthened the position of their Armenian allies of western 
Cilicia, but after his return from Harim and perhaps after his 
successful raid on Marash, when he captured four hundred Turks, 
Toros felt sufficiently strong to attack Oshin of Lampron. The 
struggle between the two princes alarmed the catholicus, Gregory 
III, whose family was allied to the house of Lampron, and he sent 
his brother, Nersés the Gracious, to bring about a reconciliation.” 
It was during this journey to western Cilicia that Nersés met 
Manuel’s kinsman Alexius Axouch at Mamistra; this encounter 
proved to be the starting point of the negotiations between the 
Greek and Armenian churches, which were to last several years 
without success.1% 

The see of the catholicus had been transferred in 1151 to Hrom- 
gla (Qal‘at ar-Riim), a fortified position on the Euphrates north of 
Bira. Ever since 1125 the head of the Armenian church had been 
residing at Dzoyk, but his position had become almost untenable 
after the conquests of Mas‘id and particularly after the capture of 
Duluk. The catholicus Gregory, seeking refuge elsewhere, had 
gladly accepted the offer of Hromgla made to him by Beatrice, the 
wife of Joscelin II of Courtenay, at that time a prisoner of the Turks. 
Hromgla seems to have been given at first “in trust”, but later the 


32 Garegin I Hovsepian, Colophons, col. 385. 
188, Der Nersessian, Armenia and the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, 1945), pp. 42-52. 


642 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES Ir 


catholicus purchased it from Joscelin III for 15,000 tahegans; the 
official deed of transfer was kept in the archives of Hromgla, so 
that — adds the Cilician Chronicle — no member of the Courtenay 
family should ever claim. the castle. 

Toros II had accomplished a remarkable piece of work. He had 
reéstablished the Armenian barony of Cilicia, and, although the 
territories over which he had control were limited and he was a 
vassal of the Byzantine emperor, he had laid foundations on which 
his successors could build. His work was almost undone, however, 
in the years immediately following his death (1168), by the actions 
of his brother Mleh, whom, a few years earlier, Toros had expelled 
from Cilicia. Mleh had gone to the court of Niir-ad-Din and had 
been appointed governor of Cyrrhus. As soon as news of the death 
of Toros reached him, he invaded Cilicia with the help of Turkish 
contingents provided by Nir-ad-Din. A first attempt to seize power 
there proved unsuccessful, though he took numerous prisoners; he 
was preparing to return with larger forces when the Armenian nobles 
ceded the barony to him in order to avoid further bloodshed.14 The 
regent Thomas fled to Antioch, and Toros’s young son Roupen II 
was catried for safety to Hromgla, where, however, Mleh’s agents 
succeeded in killing him. 

From the outset Mleh antagonized the notables and the popula- 
tion by his rapaciousness and his wanton cruelty. His ambition and 
his confidence in the support of his powerful friend Niir-ad-Din 
encouraged him to undertake at once the extension of his posses- 
sions. Using as a pretext the repudiation by Hetoum of his wife, 
who was Mleh’s niece, he beleaguered Lampron, but in spite of a 
long siege he was unable to capture this strong position; so he 
turned to the east and wrested from the Templars the castles of 
the Amanus. With the help of Turkish forces he seized Adana, 
Mamistra, and Tarsus (December 1172—January 11773), routed the 
hastily assembled army of Constantine Coloman, made him a 
prisoner, and sent him to Nir-ad-Din, together with other promi- 
nent captives and much booty. Mleh’s growing power disturbed 
the Latins, already aroused by such acts as the seizure and robbing 
of count Stephen of Sancerre in 1171, while he was proceeding 
from Antioch to Constantinople. Mleh’s hold over the castles of 


14 The “Brief History of the Roupenians”, attributed to Hetoum (“Hayton”), is the only 
Armenian source which mentions Mleh’s first, unsuccessful attempt to seize the throne. 
According to it when the Armenians heard that Mleh was making ready to return, they asked 
him “to come peacefully to be master of the country, so that the Christians should not suffer 
from the soldiers of the infidels. And he [Mleh], hearing this, sent back the soldiers to the 
sultan with many thanks.” Cf. V. A. Hakopian, Short Chronicles, 11, 102-103. On Mleh 
and Nar-ad-Din, see volume I of the present work, chapter XVI, p. 527. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 643 


the Amanus constituted a direct threat to the principality of 
Antioch. Bohemond III and some of the neighboring barons 
marched, therefore, against Mleh in the spring of 1173, but 
apparently were not successful at first.15 When news of the conflict 
reached Jerusalem, Amalric decided to intervene in person, though 
he invaded Cilicia only after Mleh had eluded his repeated attempts 
to meet with him personally. Avoiding the difficult mountainous 
regions, Amalric advanced through the plain, destroying the vil- 
lages and setting fire to the crops as he progressed. But Mleh was 
saved once again by Niir-ad-Din, who created a diversion by 
marching against Kerak. Amalric hastened back to Jerusalem; the 
other Latin forces probably withdrew at the same time, and Mleh 
remained master of Cilicia. 

The death of Niir-ad-Din in May 1174 spelled the end of Mleh’s 
fortunes. When they no longer had reason to fear Nar-ad-Din’s 
intervention, the Armenian nobles rebelled, and killed Mleh in the 
city of Sis, which had become his residence. They chose as his 
successor Roupen III (1175-1187), the eldest son of Stephen, who, 
since his father’s death, had been living with his maternal uncle 
Pagouran, lord of Babaron. 

True to the ideas which had guided most of his predecessors, 
Roupen reverted to the policy of collaboration with the Latins, and 
he strengthened these ties in 1181 by marrying Isabel, the daughter 
of Humphrey III of Toron. He had already taken part in the 
expedition against Harim, and the withdrawal of the Frankish 
troops before they had attained their goal must have been a bitter 
disappointment to the Armenians, for whom the Moslems were 
then the chief enemy. The Turkoman tribes of Anatolia had been 
crossing the northern borders for some time. Roupen tried to rid 
his land of these marauding groups; he killed a large number of 
them, and took many prisoners and considerable booty. Kiltj 
Arslan II complained to Saladin, who, in the fall of 1180, entered 
Cilicia, He established his camp near Mamistra, made rapid raids 
in different directions, and withdrew only after Roupen had 
promised to release the Turkoman prisoners and to return the 
booty he had taken. Roupen made his peace with Kilij Arslan, and 
we find the two fighting side by side at the time of the revolt of 
Isaac Comnenus, who, late in 1182, after the seizure of the imperial 

16 Michael the Syrian dates the Latin expedition in 1170 and says that Mleh, abandoned 
by his Turkish allies, was besieged in a fortress, and was forced to surrender and promise 
submission to the king of Jerusalem (Chronique, II, 337), but the other sources and the 


sequence of events show that the correct date is 1173. Cf. C. Cahen, La Syrie du nord, p. 414, 
note 7. 


644 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES q 


throne by Andronicus, had returned to Cilicia. It was probably 
during this period that Roupen recovered Adana and Mamistra, 
which had once again been taken by the Byzantines. As for Tarsus, 
still in Greek hands in 1181, it had passed later to Bohemond, who 
sold it to Roupen in 1183. 

The Byzantine forces in Cilicia were now depleted and the 
moment seemed opportune to Roupen to overthrow their Armenian 
allies, the rival house of Lampron, to whom Roupen was related 
through his mother. Hard pressed by Roupen’s siege and no 
longer able to count on Byzantine help, Hetoum of Lampron 
appealed to Bohemond III. Officially Roupen and the prince of 
Antioch were allies, but Bohemond resented the cordial welcome 
extended by Roupen to the Antiochene barons who had disapproved 
of his marriage to Sibyl and had fled to Cilicia. Moreover, any 
increase of Roupenid power was always viewed with suspicion by 
the princes of Antioch. Under cover of friendship Bohemond 
invited Roupen to a banquet and, after imprisoning him, invaded 
Cilicia. However, Bohemond was able neither to relieve Lampron, 
nor to capture a single town or castle, for Leon, to whom Roupen, 
his brother, had succeeded in sending a message, and other Arme- 
nian barons, valiantly continued to fight.1° Seeing that his efforts 
were fruitless, Bohemond, having kept Roupen prisoner for a year, 
decided to release him. Pagouran of Babaron, related both to the 
Hetoumids and to Roupen, acted as intermediary; he sent several 
hostages including his own sister Rita, Roupen’s mother. Roupen 
promised to pay a ransom of 1,000 tahegans and to cede the castles 
of Sarvantikar and Tall Hamdan, as well as Mamistra and Adana. 
But soon after the ransom had been paid and the hostages had been 
returned, he reconquered all that he had ceded, and Bohemond 
was not in a position to retaliate beyond making a few ineffectual 
raids. 

The barony was thus in a strong position when Roupen III 
transferred the power to his brother Leon II (1187) and retired to 
the monastery of Trazarg. The menace of the recent alliance 
between Isaac Angelus and Saladin, and the more immediate threat 
of the Turkomans, led to a rapprochement between Leon and 
Bohemond. Large bands of these nomads had again been crossing 
the northern borders, advancing almost as far as Sis and laying 
waste on all sides. Leon could muster only a small force, but he 
attacked them with such energy that he routed the bands, killed 
their leader Rustam, and pursued the fugitives as far as Sarvantikar, 

11, Alishan, Hayabadoum, p. 347. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 645 


inflicting heavy losses on them. The following year (1188), taking 
advantage of the troubled condition in the sultanate of Rim that 
preceded the death of Kilij Arslan II, Leon turned against the 
Selchtikids. A surprise attack on Bragana was unsuccessful, and the 
constable Baldwin was killed, but Leon returned two months later 
witha larger army, killed the head of the garrison, seized the fortress, 
and marched into Isauria. Though we find no specific mention of 
it, Seleucia must have been captured about this time, for the city 
was in Armenian hands when Frederick Barbarossa came in 1190. 
Proceeding northward, Leon seized Heraclea, gave it up after 
payment to him of a large sum, and advanced as far as Caesarea. 
It is probably about this time that Shahnshah, brother of Hetoum 
of Lampron, took, on behalf of Leon, the fortress of Loulon, 
covering the northern approach to the Cilician Gates, and 
fortified it.1” 


On the eve of the Third Crusade the Armenian barony of 
Cilicia could be considered one of the vital Christian states of the 
Levant, and its strong position was particularly noticeable at a time 
when the Latin principalities, reduced almost exclusively to the 
three large cities of Antioch, Tyre, and Tripoli, were hard pressed 
by Saladin. The letters sent in 1189 by pope Clement III to Leon II 
and to the catholicus Gregory IV Dgha are a clear indication of this, 
for, while previously the Armenians had been asking for help, now 
it was the pope who urged them to give military and financial 
assistance to the crusaders.1® 

When Frederick Barbarossa approached the Armenian terri- 
tories, Leon sent an embassy composed of several barons, with 
presents, ample supplies, and armed troops. A second embassy, 
headed by the bishop Nersés of Lampron, arrived too late and 
returned to Tarsus with the emperor’s son Frederick, the bishops, 
and the German army. Barbarossa’s death made a profound impres- 
sion on the Armenians, we find it recorded in the colophons of 
many manuscripts written during these years in Cilicia. It was a 
particularly cruel blow for Leon, in whom Barbarossa’s presence 
and influence had bred high hopes of obtaining the royal crown 
which he so greatly desired. Nersés of Lampron claims that Frederick 
had promised this ‘“‘in a writing sealed with a gold seal,” but when 
Leon asked for the fulfillment of the promise, the German leaders 


17 Ibid., ». 432; colophon of a manuscript written by Nersés of Lampron at Loulon 
in 1196. 

38 The letter of Clement III is preserved only in an Armenian translation, See the French 
translation in L. Alishan, Léon le Magnifique, pp. 163-165. 


646 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES itt 


demurred, stating that, since the emperor was dead, they could 
not act.1® 

Leon participated in the wars of the crusaders; his troops were 
present at the siege of Acre, and he joined Richard the Lionhearted 
in the conquest of Cyprus. He was intent, at the same time, upon 
insuring the security of his own realm, and some of his actions 
undertaken for this purpose ran counter to the interests or aspira- 
tions of his neighbors. In 1191 he captured the fortress of Baghras, 
taken from the Templars by Saladin and dismantled after the 
arrival of the Third Crusade, and he refused to cede it to the 
Templars. This brought to a head the growing antagonism between 
Leon and Bohemond III, and the possession of Baghras was to be 
one of the principal points of contention in the long struggle 
between Cilicia and Antioch. For the moment Leon was the stronger 
of the two. Annoyed by the fact that Bohemond had signed a 
separate peace with Saladin and had complained to him of the 
seizure of Baghras, annoyed also by Bohemond’s continued delays 
in repaying the sums lent to him in 1188, Leon hatched a plot to 
seize Bohemond and to free himself of the suzerainty of Antioch. 
Soon after the death of Saladin he invited Bohemond to Baghras 
and seized him, just as several years earlier Bohemond himself had 
made prisoner Leon’s brother Roupen III.2° His attempt to annex 
Antioch was unsuccessful; though many of the nobles were favor- 
able to Leon, the citizens set up a commune which took an oath of 
allegiance to Raymond, Bohemond’s eldest son, and messengers were 
sent to the other son, Bohemond of Tripoli, and to Henry of Cham- 
pagne, ruler of Jerusalem. Leon took his prisoners to Sis, where 
Henry came to negotiate Bohemond’s release in the spring of 1194. 
Bohemond renounced his rights as a suzerain, and in return for this 
was allowed to go back to Antioch without paying a ransom; Leon 
retained Baghras and the surrounding territory. To seal the new 
friendship, a marriage was arranged between Leon’s niece Alice, the 
heiress-presumptive, and Bohemond’s eldest son and heir, Raymond, 

Although Leon had not attained his ultimate purpose, that is, 
mastery or at least suzerainty over Antioch, his position was 
stronger than it had been before, and he pressed with renewed 
energy his claims for a royal crown, seeking the assistance of the 
two most powerful rulers of the time, the pope and the German 

31® Colophon written by Nersés of Lampron at the end of his translation of the letters of 
Lucius IIE and Clement III. Cf. Garegin I Hovsepian, Colophons, col. 538. For Frederick 


Barbarossa, and the situation after his death, see above, chapter IIL, pp. 113-116. 
20 For the relations between Leon and Antioch see C. Cahen, La Syrie du nord, and above, 


chapter XV, pp. 526-528, 532-541. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 647 


emperor. The embassies sent to Celestine III and to Henry VI met 
with success; in 1197 the imperial chancellor, Conrad of Hildes- 
heim, left for the east, taking with him two crowns — one for 
Aimery of Cyprus, another for Leon. Aimery was crowned in 
September, but Leon’s coronation was slightly delayed, partly 
through political circumstances — Conrad had gone directly from 
Cyprus to Acre — partly for religious reasons. The emperor 
demanded merely to be recognized as Leon’s suzerain, but the 
pope required submission of the Armenian church to Rome, and 
this created considerable difficulty; there was marked opposition 
not only from the clergy of Greater Armenia, but from the majority 
of the clergy and the people of Cilicia. John, archbishop of Sis, 
was sent to Acre, and shortly thereafter a delegation headed by 
Conrad, archbishop of Mainz, arrived at Sis. 

The bishops called together by Leon at first refused the papal 
demands, and are said to have agreed to them only after Leon told 
them that he would submit merely in word and not in deed. But the 
conditions listed by the historian Kirakos deal with disciplinary 
regulations rather than with matters of dogma.?1 One may wonder 
whether the first demands, against which the Armenian bishops 
rebelled, did not directly concern their creed, and whether these 
demands were not later abandoned, leaving only the clauses to which 
the bishops, carefully selected by Leon among those more favorable 
to Rome, could truthfully subscribe. This hypothesis gains strength 
from the fact that in the subsequent correspondence exchanged 
between pope Innocent III and his successors on the one hand, and 
the Armenians on the other, there is no direct reference to any of 
the points of dogma which separated the two churches, and which 
had proved such serious stumbling blocks in all the attempts at 
union between the Greeks and Armenians. Both king and catholicus 
are lavish in their expressions of respect and submission to the 
papacy, but this submission must have been considered by them as 
the homage due to a suzerain lord, and the respect due to the suc- 
cessor of the apostle Peter. Some minor new usages were introduced 
into the liturgical practices, but there were no basic changes. In a 
letter written to the pope in 1201 the catholicus Gregory VI tact- 
fully and discreetly explains that the Armenian faith remains what 
it had always been “without any additions or deletions”. The 
union with the church of Rome is not a conversion, but a union 


22 RHC, Arm., I, 422~423. According to Vincent of Beauvais (Speculum historiale, XXI, 
29) a condition set by the papal legate was that all school children aged twelve should be taught 
Latin. Another source adds that the catholicus was required to send a legate to the pope at set 
dates to render his homage (L. Alishan, Léon le Magnifique, p. 167). 


648 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES Ir 


within the universal church to which they all belong, since the 
regeneration through baptism has caused all men to become the 
sheep of the same fold, namely the church of the living God.” 

Leon IJ was crowned with great solemnity in the cathedral 
church of Tarsus, on January 6, 1198, in the presence of the 
Syrian Jacobite patriarch, the Greek metropolitan of Tarsus, and 
numerous church dignitaries and military leaders.28 The catholicus 
Gregory VI Abirad anointed him and the royal insignia were 
presented by Conrad of Mainz. There was great rejoicing among 
the Armenians, who saw their ancient kingdom restored and 
renewed in the person of Leon. 

The Armenian historians and the scribes of contemporary 
manuscripts also refer to a crown sent by the Byzantine emperor, 
Alexius III Angelus. But there does not seem to have been a 
separate coronation ceremony, for the crowns sent by Byzantium, 
for instance, to the kings of Hungary or to petty rulers, had a 
symbolic and honorific character, and were not intended to show 
the promotion of a prince to the dignity of a king. The evidence 
concerning the date is contradictory, some placing it as early as 
1196, some as late as 1198.24 In 1197 Leon sent an embassy to 


28 PL, CCXIY, col. 1008. 

28 Sempad and the Cilician Chronicle date the coronation of Leon on January 6, 647, of 
the Armenian era, which would correspond to the year 1199 (the year 647 goes from January 
41) 1198, to January 30, 1199); all the other Armenian sources — histories, chronicles, as well 
as a number of colophons of manuscripts — give January 6, 646, of the Armenian era which 
corresponds to rr98. Many modern historians have given preference to the date mentioned 
by Sempad; one of the principal reasons for this being that the name of Nersés of Lampron, 
who died in July 1198, does not appear among those of the dignitaries present at the corona- 
tion, listed by the constable Sempad, and other bishops are mentioned in his place for the 
sees of Tarsus and Lampron (L. Alishan, Léon le Magnifique, pp. 168-180). But it is not 
proved that this is actually the list of the persons present at the coronation. Sempad, after 
mentioning the coronation and the death of Nersés of Lampron, gives a general picture of 
Leon’s personality, then comes the sentence: “and at the coronation of Leon there were 
many bishops and chieftains, whom I shall mention briefly here, for the information of the 
readers” (RHC, Arm., 1, 634). This sentence does not occur in the Cilician Chronicle, and 
the list there, which in several instances is more accurate than Sempad’s, is preceded by the 
words: “And the land of Cilicia was adorned and embellished by all the orders of clerics and 
noble chieftains, and I shall give their names one by one” (p. 208). The list is, therefore, not 
connected with the coronation festivities and the omission of the name of Nersés of Lampron 
cannot be used as an argument for dating the coronation after his death, especially as Nersés 
himself refers to Leon as king in several colophons, one of which, written in 1198, is particu- 
larly explicit. “In this year,” he writes, “the king of the Armenians was greatly honored . . 4; 
the fame of his bravery moved the great rulers of Ancient Rome, Henry, and of New Rome, 
Alexius, who crowned him with precious jewels in the church of Tarsus, of which I am the 
unworthy pastor ” (Garegin I Hovsepian, op. cit., col. 624). For the German imperial ambi- 
tions which motivated the granting of this crown, see above, chapter ITI, pp. 116-120. 

24Sempad (RHC, Arm., 1, p. 633) and the Cilician Chronicle (p. 207) report that the 
king of the Greeks sent a magnificent crown to Leon, and Leon is given the title of king 
in a colophon of the same year (Garegin I Hovsepian, Colophons, col. 599). According to 
Kirakos Alexius sent a crown to Leon only when he heard that the German emperor had 
already sent one (RHC, Arm., 1, 424). 


Ch. XVHI THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 649 


Constantinople composed of Nersés of Lampron and other dig- 
nitaries, and it has been said that the purpose of this embassy was 
to thank the emperor for the crown that Leon had received. But 
neither Nersés nor the other contemporaries who speak of this 
embassy refer to a crown; all of the discussions centered on religious 
questions, and the sending of the embassy was the last of several 
fruitless efforts to achieve a union between the two churches.*5 
Whatever the actual facts concerning the Byzaritine crown may 
have been, it is evident that Leon was much more anxious to be 
crowned by the western emperor, for this put him on an equal 
footing with the Latin princes of the Levant. 

The succession to Antioch was the main problem of Leon’s 
reign. Raymond had died early in 1197, and in accordance with the 
feudal laws his son Raymond Roupen, Leon’s great-nephew, 
became Bohemond’s heir. The barons had sworn allegiance to 
Raymond Roupen, but his succession to Antioch was opposed by 
Bohemond’s second son, Bohemond of Tripoli; by the Templars, 
who could not forgive Leon for keeping Baghras; and by the 
commune, which was hostile to any Armenian interference. The 
war of succession, which began after the death of Bohemond III 
in 1201 and was to continue for almost a quarter of a century, con- 
cerned Antioch even more than it did Cilicia and has been discussed 
elsewhere in this volume.?* Suffice it to say here that, in spite of 
momentary successes, Leon’s plans were defeated in the end; 
Raymond Roupen, crowned prince of Antioch in 1216, was 
ousted three years later by his uncle, Bohemond of Tripoli, and 
all hope of Armenian supremacy over Antioch was lost. 

Syrian affairs also involved Leon in warfare with az-Zahir of 
Aleppo and the Selchiikid Rukn-ad-Din Sulaiman II, whom Bohe- 
mond of Tripoli had summoned to his aid. In 1201 he repulsed 
a Selchiikid invasion of Armenia, but he was less successful two 
years later when he had to confront the Aleppine forces on the 
banks of the Orontes. Hostilities broke out again late in 1205. 
Leon made a surprise attack on Darbsak, and although he could 
not take the fort, he laid waste the surrounding territory and in- 
flicted heavy losses. Az-Zahir sent fresh contingents and assumed 
their command in person in the spring of 1206. Victorious at first, 
Leon had to retreat before the superior forces when the Antiochene 
armies joined the Moslems. An eight-year truce was signed, but 
in 1208-1209 az-Zahir and the Selchikkid Kai-Khusrau I, whom 


261, Alishan, Hayabadoum, pp. 424-425. 
26 See above, chapter XV, pp. 532~541; also C. Cahen, La Syrie du nord, pp. 596-635. 


650 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II 


Leon had befriended earlier and received at his court, made a 
sudden attack and seized the fort of Pertous. 

However, these were minor reverses and Cilician power was at 
its apogee during the reign of Leon II. His kingdom extended from 
Isauria to the Amanus. He had become master of Lampron by 
seizing and imprisoning Hetoum, whom later he freed and sent as 
his ambassador to the pope and to the emperor.’ A skilled diplomat 
and wise politician, Leon established useful alliances with many of 
the contemporary rulers. Through his second marriage he became 
the son-in-law of Aimery of Lusignan, king of Cyprus and Jeru- 
salem; his daughter by his first marriage, Rita (“Stephanie”), was 
wedded to John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem; his niece Philippa 
married ‘Theodore I Lascaris, emperor of Nicaea. In spite of the 
difficulties caused by the wars of the succession to Antioch and by 
the religious problems, Leon maintained, on the whole, his good 
relations with the papacy. He gained the friendship and support 
of the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights by granting con- 
siderable territories to them. To the Hospitallers, already established 
in Cilicia in 1149, he gave Seleucia, Norpert (Castellum Novum), 
and Camardias, thus constituting a march on the western borders 
of Cilicia and thereby protecting the country from the Selchtikids.* 
He also ceded castles in the Giguer and along the Antiochene 
frontier. The Teutonic Knights received Amoudain and neighboring 
castles.29 The master of the order may even have resided in Cilicia 
for a while; Wilbrand of Oldenburg, who describes in great detail 
the ceremonies of the feast of the Epiphany held at Sis in 1211, 
saw him riding next to the king.3° 

Commerce was greatly developed during the reign of Leon II, 
who granted special privileges to the Genoese and Venetian 
merchants.*! The important land routes that crossed Cilicia brought 
there many products from Central Asia, and these, in addition to 
local products, were exported or exchanged for the wares of the 
European traders. Corycus and especially Ayas (Lajazzo) had good 
harbors; moreover, many of the inland cities were connected with 
the sea through navigable rivers. 

The transformation of the Armenian court, following the pattern 

27N, Akinian, ‘‘Hetoum Heghi, Lord of Lampron 1151-1218(?)” (in Armenian), 
Handes Amsorya, LXIX (1955), 397-405. 

28V. Langlois, Le Trésor des chartes d’ Arménie, pp. 74-77 and special charters. G. Dela- 
ville Le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et a Chypre (Paris, 1904). 

29'V, Langlois, Le Trésor des chartes d'Arménie, pp. 81-82 and special charters. 

30 J. C. M. Laurent, Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor (Leipzig, 1864), pp. 177-179. 


The master was Hermann of Salza, who may merely have been visiting Sis at this time. 
31 V. Langlois, Le Trésor des chartes d’Arménie, pp. 105-112, 126. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 651 


of the Frankish courts, proceeded at a more rapid pace after Leon 
came to power. Many of the old names of specific functions or the 
titles of dignitaries were replaced by Latin ones and the changes in 
nomenclature were often accompanied by changes in the character 
of these offices. The ancient feudal system of Armenia was also 
gradually modified in imitation of western feudalism; the barons 
lost some of the independence which the xakharars had enjoyed 
and were bound by closer ties to the king. Finally, in matters of law, 
the authority of the Latin Assizes constantly increased until the 
Armenians fully adopted the Assizes of Antioch, translated by the 
constable Sempad during the reign of Leon’s successor.” 


Leon died in 1219. He had named his young daughter Isabel as 
his rightful heiress and had released the barons from their oath of 
allegiance to Raymond Roupen. Butthe latter had several strong sup- 
porters and hetried to seize the power with their assistance. He was de- 
feated, however, after a few initial successes, and died in captivity. 
To avoid further complications, the regent, Constantine of Lampron, 
decided to find a husband for the young princess; his choice fell on 
Philip, the fourth son of Bohemond IV of Antioch.*4 The joint ruleof 
Isabel and Philip lasted only a short while; Philip’s disdain for the 
Armenian ritual, which he had promised to respect, and his marked 
favoritism to the Latin barons angered the Armenian nobility, he 
was deposed, imprisoned, and died in captivity through poisoning** 

Despite her determined resistance®* Isabel was next married to 


32 The Assizes of Antioch, which have survived only in the Armenian version, were 
translated by the constable Sempad, king Hetoum's brother, before the year 1265: (L. Alishan), 
Assises a’ Antioche repraduites en frangats et publies au sixiéme centenaire de la mort de Sempad 
te Connétable' (Venice, 1876); Joseph Karst, Armenisches Rechtsbuch: Sempadischer Kodex aus 
dem 13. Fakrhundert in Verbindung mit dem grossarmenischen Rechtsbuck des Mechithar 
Gosch (Strassburg, 1905). 

33 John of Brienne, who had married Rita (“Stephanie”), Leon II's daughter by his first 
marriage, also made a claim for the throne, but he was rejected by the barons, and Rita's 
death, followed soon after by the death of their son, deprived him of his title to the succession. 
Raymond Roupen’s chief supporter was Yahram, lord of Corycus, who married Raymond 
Roupen’s mother, the princess Alice. They seized Tarsus and Adana, which were recaptured 
by the regent, Constantine of Lampron, in 1221; Raymond Roupen died the following year. 
See above, chapter XV, pp. 539-541. 

4 Negotiations for a marriage with Andrew the son of king Andrew II of Hungary, 
begun in the lifetime of Leon II, were not pursued, 

6 Bohemond IV tried in vain to obtain the liberation of his son. His appeal to the pope, 
Honorius ITT, after Philip’s death, did not have any positive results. He turned to the Selchi- 
kids and, urged by him, Kai-Qobad I ravaged northern Cilicia, Constantine retaliating in 
kind; the latter appealed to al-‘Aziz of Aleppo and Bohemond was forced to desist from 
further action, 

36 Tsabel fled to Seleucia and sought refuge with the Hospitallers; the latter were unwilling 
to give her up to Constantine but feared the powerful regent; they eased their conscience by 
selling him the fortress, with Isabel in it. She is said to have refused to consummate the 
marriage for several years. 


652 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES u 


the regent’s own son Hetoum, and the long antagonism between the 
two powerful feudal families of the Roupenids and the Hetoumids 
of Lampron was thus brought to an end (1226). The early years 
of Hetoum I’s reign were relatively peaceful. Relations with 
Antioch, though strained, did not lead to hostile acts, for Bohe- 
mond IV was beset by too many difficulties to resort to arms.%? 
There was greater unrest along the Selchikid border. In 1233 
Kai-Qobad I invaded Cilicia and imposed a tribute “upon the 
Armenians.#* Selchtikid troops entered the country again (1245— 
1246), after Hetoum had acceded to the Mongol general Baiju’s 
demand and delivered to him the wife and daughter of Kai-Khusrau 
II, who had sought refuge at the Armenian court at the time of 
the Mongol attack on Iconium. Though helped by the Armenian 
baron, Constantine (II) of Lampron, the regent’s namesake, in revolt 
against king Hetoum, Kai-Khusrau could only seize a few forts 
which the Mongols, some years later, forced him to return, 

The Mongols were the most serious menace, and it was Hetoum’s 
realization of this that had forced him to betray the laws of hos- 
pitality and to send a deferential message to their general Baiju. 
The Mongol hordes had swept through Armenia and Georgia, far 
into Anatolia, and Hetoum early recognized that only an alliance 
with them could save his kingdom. Consequently he sent his 
brother, the constable Sempad, on an official embassy to Kara- 
korum.2® Sempad left Cilicia in 1247 and returned in 1250 with a 
diploma guaranteeing the integrity of the Cilician kingdom, and 
the promise of Mongol aid to recapture the forts seized by the 
Selchitkids. 

In 1253 Hetoum himself set out to visit the new Great Khan 
Méngke at Karakorum. He was the first ruler to come to the 
Mongol court of his own accord, and was received with great 
honors. The assurances given by Méngke’s predecessor Goyiik 
were renewed and expanded; Méngke further promised to free 


37 Hetoum I established alliances with many of the Frankish princes. His sister Stephanie 
married Henry I of Cyprus; another sister, Maria, married John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa. 
His daughters were also given in marriage to Latin princes: Sibyl to Bohemond VI of Antioch; 
Euphemia to Julian, count of Sidon; and Maria to Guy of Ibelin, son of Baldwin, seneschal 
of Cyprus. Hetoum’s daughter Rita, however, married an Armenian, the lord of Sarvantikar 
(cither Sempad or his brother Constantine). 

8¢ The coins struck by Hetoum I at Sis during this period bear the names of Kai-Qobad I 
and Kai-Khusrau II in Arabic script on the reverse; two of the latter are dated 637 and 641 
AH (=1239/t240, 1243/1244). On the Selchakids at this period, see below, chapter XIX, 
PP 683-684. 

39Tetter written by Sempad to his brother-in-law, Henry 1 of Cyprus: see William of 
Nangis, Vie de saint Louis (RHGF, XX), 361-363; Kirakos, History (Tiflis, 1909), pp. 301-302. 
On the Mongols, see below, chapter XXI. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 653 


from taxation the Armenian churches and monasteries in Mongol 
territory.4° Hetoum’s dominating idea was not merely to preserve 
his own kingdom and to obtain protection for the Christians under 
Mongol rule, but to enlist the Khan’s help in freeing the Holy Land 
from the Moslem. 

Hetoum returned in 1256 encouraged by these promises and 
laden with gifts. On his way out he had passed through Greater 
Armenia; on his return voyage he remained much longer there, 
receiving visits from many of the local princes as well as from the 
bishops and abbots. Leon II had considered himself king of all the 
Armenians, and had stamped this title on some of his coins, but 
this was the first time that a ruler of Cilicia had come into direct 
contact with the population of the mother country. 

Hetoum tried to win the Latin princes over to the idea of a 
Christian-Mongol alliance, but could convince only Bohemond VI 
of Antioch. For his part, he remained faithful to the clauses of the 
understanding with the Mongols. He visited several times the 
court of the Tekhins and gave his military assistance whenever it 
was needed, Armenian troops fought side by side with the Mongols 
in Anatolia and in Syria, and the successes of the Mongols enabled 
Hetoum to recover, in addition to the Cilician forts taken by the 
Selchttkids, some of the territories which had once belonged to 
Kogh Yasil. 

Thus the Armenians at first benefitted from their alliance with 
the Mongols. Hetoum was also successful in his encounters with 
Kilij Arslan IV, whom he defeated in 1259, and with the Turko- 
mans established on the western borders of Cilicia. He routed their 
bands, mortally wounded their leader Karaman, and freed the 
region of Seleucia from their attacks (1263).41 But the Armenians 
were soon to experience the counter-effects of their alliance, especially 
when, after the defeat of Kitbogha at ‘Ain Jaliit and the loss of 
Damascus and Aleppo, Mongol power weakened in Syria; they 
were to be among the principal victims of the formidable enemy 
of both Mongols and Christians, the Egyptian sultan Baybars.? 

Hetoum tried to negotiate with Baybars, and embassies were 
exchanged, but the sultan made excessive demands and Hetoum, 
seeing that war was imminent, went to Tabriz to seek Mongol 
help. However, Baybars precipitated his action; the Mamluk armies 

40 Kirakos, History, pp. 350-357; Hetoum, La Flor des estoires de la terre d’vrient (RHC, 
4Arm., 11), 163-168; Cilician Chronicle, pp. 229-231. 

41 Cilician Chronicle, pp. 238-240; C. Cahen, “Quelques textes négligés concernant les 


Turcomans de Rim,” Byzantion, XIV (1939), 133-134. 
42 For Baybars, see below, chapter XXII, pp. 745-750. 


654 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES Tl 


and their ally al-Mangir IT of Hamah invaded Cilicia, passing 
through the Amanus Gates instead of trying to force a passage 
through the Syrian Gates (1266). The Armenians, commanded by 
the constable Sempad and the two young princes, Toros and Leon, 
resisted valiantly, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Toros 
was slain, Leon and Sempad’s son Vasil, surnamed the Tatar, were 
taken prisoner, and the enemy armies devastated the entire country 
for twenty days without meeting further resistance. They sacked 
Mamistra, Adana, Ayas, Tarsus, and smaller localities; at Sis they 
set fire to the cathedral and forced the treasury, taking all the gold 
that had been assembled there. They slaughtered thousands of the 
inhabitants and carried many more as captives to Egypt. When 
Hetoum returned he found his country in ruins, and distraught 
by this fatal blow and by his personal sorrow, he waited only for 
the return of Leon from captivity to abdicate and seek solace in a 
monastery. 

Baybars imposed very heavy conditions; the Armenians were 
forced to cede all the forts of the Amanus and their conquests along 
the Syrian border, with the exception of Behesni. Leon was set 
free only when Hetoum had been able to obtain from Abagha, 
after repeated requests, the release of Baybars’ favorite, Shams-ad- 
Din Sungur al-Ashkar, captured by the Mongols at Aleppo. 

Cilicia was now surrounded by the Moslems; Antioch had fallen, 
the Templars had abandoned Baghras and the neighboring forts, 
the road thus lay open before Baybars. The Mongols were the only 
allies who could give effective assistance against the Egyptians, 
even though their position was much less strong than it had been 
at the time of Hulagu. When Leon was freed, Hetoum, therefore, 
took him to Abagha in order to have him recognized as his heir, 
and after Hetoum’s abdication (1269) Leon returned to the court 
of the Il-khans to have his title confirmed. Leon III believed, as 
his father had, in a Mongol-Christian alliance which would save 
the Holy Land; he made repeated pleas to the western powers; 
Abagha also sent envoys to the popes and to Edward I of England, 
without any success. It is not certain that common action was 
possible or would have been successful, but in the absence of any 
concerted opposition the Mamluks were free to continue their 
conquests, to seize, as they did a few years later, all the Latin 
possessions in Syria and Palestine, and in the latter part of the 
fourteenth century to destroy the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia. 

The wars waged by Baybars elsewhere gave Leon III a few 
years’ respite at the beginning of his reign, and he tried to heal the 


Ch, XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 655 


ravages caused by the Mamluk invasion. New privileges were 
granted to the Venetian merchants in 1271; Ayas was rebuilt and 
became again an active commercial center. Marco Polo, who 
visited it in 1271, speaks of it as “a city good and great and of 
great trade”, adding that “all the spicery and the cloths of silk and 
of gold and of wool from inland are carried to this town’’.** As the 
Egyptians captured the Syrian and Palestinian sea ports the im- 
portance of Ayas grew; it was one of the chief outlets to the Mediter- 
ranean for the goods brought from Central Asia, but its importance 
and wealth made it at the same time one of the principal targets 
of the Egyptians. 

Mamluk attacks began again in 1275; in a rapid but devastating 
raid they advanced as far as Corycus. At the same time the Turko- 
mans entered Cilicia from the west and, though repulsed, continued 
to raid the border lands year after year. Internal dissension and 
revolts of some of the barons created further difficulties for Leon 
during these years when there was almost no direct Mongol 
assistance. The invasion of Syria in 1281 was the most serious 
undertaking by the [l-khans in these parts since the death of 
Hulagu; the Armenians fought at the side of the Mongols, but the 
Egyptian sultan Kalavun, having won the neutrality of the Franks, 
was able to defeat the Mongol and Armenian forces. 

Lawless bands of Mongols, Egyptians, Turkomans, and Kurds 
pillaged Cilicia; they set fire to Ayas and looted the warehouses 
abandoned by the population, who had fled to a new fortress built 
out in the sea, The emissaries sent to Egypt by Leon to ask for 
peace were detained as prisoners until the master of the Templars 
intervened. Another factor may have been instrumental in modify- 
ing the Egyptian attitude: the new Mongol [I-khan, Arghun, was 
favorable to the Christians; Leon had gone to his court to pay his 
respects, and Kalavun may have feared Mongol intervention. A ten- 
year truce was signed on June 6, 1285; the conditions were ex- 
tremely onerous — an annual tribute of one million dirhems — 
moreover, numerous privileges were granted to the Egyptians.** 
The peace won at such high cost was to be broken before the ten 
years had elapsed. 

After the fall of Acre and Tripoli, when Egyptian armies had 
reached Homs, Hetoum II, who had succeeded his father. Leon III 
in 1289, tried to appease them by offering a large sum of money; 


43 Marco Polo, The Description of the World, ed. A. C. Moule and Paul Pelliot (London, 
1938), p. 94. For the importance of Ayas see W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant 
(reprinted Leipzig, 1936), IT, 73-92. 

44 Al-Magqrizi (tr. Quatremére), Histoire des sultans mamlouks, II, i, 201-212. 


656 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES It 


the sultan al-Ashraf accepted this, merely postponing his invasion 
until he had completed the conquest of the Frankish territories. 
In the spring of 1292, he marched on the patriarchal see of Hrom- 
gla. The citadel resisted for thirty-three days and was finally taken 
by assault on May 11. Terrible slaughter followed; many of the 
monks were killed, others were carried into captivity together with 
the catholicus Stephen IV himself. The Egyptians looted the 
churches and the residence of the catholicus; they destroyed or 
stole the precious relics and church treasures.4® The capture of 
Hromela was celebrated as a great victory; the sultan wrote to the 
qadi Ibn-al-Khuwaiyi to announce the event; he was received with 
special honors at Damascus, and for seven days the trumpets con- 
tinued to sound in the cathedral and candles burned all through 
the night. 

The Egyptians did not immediately enter Cilicia, but in May 
1293 the army stationed at Damascus received orders to march on 
Sis. Ambassadors were sent in great haste by the Armenians; they 
were forced to cede the remaining fortresses on the eastern front — 
Behesni, Marash, and Tall Hamdin, and to double the tribute 
they had been paying theretofore. 

The murder of the sultan al-Ashraf late in 1293, the troubled 
reign of the usurper Kitbogha, and the famine and plague which 
spread in Egypt and Syria gave a breathing-spell to the Armenians. 
Hetoum, who had abdicated in favor of his brother Toros ITI in 
1292, was urged to return two years later.4”7 He strengthened the 
ties with Cyprus — the only other Christian kingdom surviving 
in the Levant — by giving his sister Isabel in marriage to Amalric, 
the brother of king Henry IT. He also tried to revive the Mongol 
alliance and set out to visit the II-khan Baidu. While he was waiting 
at Maragha, where he was able to save from destruction the Syrian 
church erected by Rabban Saum4 and to protect the Nestorian 
patriarch Mar Yabhalaha III, Ghazan wrested the power from 
Baidu. Hetoum went to pay him homage. From Ghazan he received 
the assurance that the Christian churches would not be destroyed, 
and it is probable that he also received the promise of military 
assistance.** On his return to Sis in 1295 he arranged a marriage 

451, Alishan, Hayabadoum, pp. 300-502. : 

46 Al-Jazari (tr. Sauvaget), La Chronique de Damas, pp. 15-16 and appendices I and II. 

47 Hetoum II, converted to the Roman church, had entered the Franciscan order. A brave 


soldier and a devout Christian, his frequent vacillations between the throne and the monastery 
weakened the royal authority at a time when a strong hand and an uninterrupted policy were 


sorely needed. 
48 J. B, Chabot, “Histoire du patriarche Mar Jabalaha Hi,” ROL, IE (1894), 137-1393 


Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, p. 506. 


Ch. XVII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 657 


between his sister Rita and Michael IX, the son and associate of 
Andronicus II Palaeologus; in order to establish an alliance with 
the Byzantine empire, he went in person to Constantinople, ac- 
companied by his brother Toros. But during his absence another 
brother, Sempad, who had won the support of the catholicus 
Gregory VII and of pope Boniface VIII, seized power (1296). 

Cilicia was torn by this internal strife. Hetoum, returning from 
his fruitless journey to obtain the support of the Mongols, was 
intercepted near Caesarea by Sempad, and imprisoned together 
with his brother Toros; Toros was strangled and Hetoum partially 
blinded. Sempad was overthrown by his younger brother Con- 
stantine, who freed Hetoum but retained the power (1298). A 
year later Hetoum, having recovered his sight, resumed the king- 
ship for the third time and exiled his brothers Sempad and Con- 
stantine to Constantinople, where they died. 

These fratricidal wars and the discords which reigned also among 
the Mongols encouraged the Egyptians to invade Cilicia once 
again. In 1298 their armies sacked Adana and Mamistra and took 
eleven fortresses. Among these were Marash and Tall Hamdin, 
which the Armenians had ceded some years earlier, but which they 
had apparently recovered in the meantime. 

Hetoum still counted on the Mongols to defeat the Egyptians, 
and it seemed, for a short time, that his hopes were to be fulfilled. 
The Syrian expedition led by the [I-khan Ghazan, whom Hetoum 
Joined at the head of 5,000 men, routed the Mamluk army near 
Homs in December 1299. But Ghazan departed shortly after and 
the Egyptians recovered Syria, A second campaign in 1301 was 
seriously hampered by bad weather, and the third expedition, in 
1303, ended in disaster. The Mongol forces were decimated, many 
of the soldiers were drowned in the flooded waters of the Euphrates; 
Hetoum retreated with the remnants of the Mongol army and went 
to the court of Ghazan before returning to Cilicia. 

The road to Cilicia again lay open before the Moslems. Already 
in 1302 the emir of Aleppo had made a rapid raid, burning the 
harvest and gathering vast booty. In July 1304 the Egyptians took 
Tall Hamdin, which Hetoum had recovered after the Mongol 
victory of 1299. They returned to Cilicia the following year and, 
although the Armenians, helped by a company of Mongols who 
had come to collect the annual tribute, inflicted heavy losses on 
them, they were defeated after the arrival of fresh Egyptian troops. 
Marino Sanudo summarizes in graphic terms the unhappy state 
of the country. “The king of Armenia,” he writes, “is under the 


658 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II 


fangs of four ferocious beasts— the lion, or the Tartars, to whom he 
pays a heavy tribute; the leopard, or the Sultan, who daily ravages 
his frontiers; the wolf, or the Turks, who destroy his power; and 
the serpent, or the pirates of our seas, who worry the very bones 
of the Christians of Armenia.’’4® The difficulties increased when 
the Mongols were converted to Islam, for then the Armenians not 
only lost all hope of assistance but were subjected to religious 
persecution. 

In 1305 Hetoum abdicated in favor of his nephew Leon IV and 
once again retired to a monastery, but Leon’s reign, already troubled 
by internal strife, in particular the opposition which the pro-papal 
policy of Hetoum and the catholicus had stirred up, came to an 
abrupt end on November 17, 1307. The Mongol emir Bilarghu 
treacherously killed Hetoum, king Leon, and about forty of the 
dignitaries and nobles who accompanied them.5° 


The Armenian barony, later the kingdom of Cilicia, fighting 
against tremendous odds, had not only maintained its existence for 
over two centuries, but had attained an important position during 
the reign of Leon IJ and part of that of Hetoum I. It had valorously 
played its part in the crusades, continuing the struggle, together 
with the kingdom of Cyprus, after the destruction of the other 
Christian realms of the Levant. 

The history of constant warfare, invasions, destructions, and 
plunder, briefly sketched above, may tend to obscure the very real 
cultural achievements of the period, which can only be recalled 
here in a few words. Along with original histories, literary works, 
and theological writings, we find numerous translations from 
Greek, Syriac, and even Arabic, but the most significant are the 
translations from Latin which appear for the first time in Armenian 


49 Quoted by Henry H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, III (1888), 579. 

60 Tchamitch, without giving his source, says that the Armenians, who were angered by 
the changes that Hetoum, king Leon IV, and the catholicus wished to introduce into the 
Armenian ritual, in order to conform to Roman usage, aroused Bilarghu against Hetoum 
and Leon and thus caused their death (History of the Armenians, IT, 311). He has been followed 
by most modern historians, but this interpretation of Bilarghu’s action does not rest on any 
text known so far. The Armenian sources recall the murder very briefly without giving a 
specific reason (RHC, Arm., I, 490, 664; Khachikian, Colophons, pp. 55-56; Hakopian, 
Short Chronicles, I, 88, 89, 99; 11, 188, 512-513), or say that Bilarghu wished to become 
master of Cilicia (RHC, Arm., I, 466). Jean Dardel (RHC, Arm., II, 16-17), the Moslem 
sources (al-Maqrizi, Histoire des sultans mamlouks, II, ii, 279; the continuation of Rashid- 
ad-Din, cited in RHC, Arm., I, 549, note 1; the Tarikhi Oldjaitou, cited in RHC, Arm., II, 
16, note 3), and the Latin sources (“Les Gestes des Chiprois,” RHC, Arm., Il, 867-868; 
the ‘Chronicle of Cyprus,” cited in Howorth, History of the Mongols, IIL, 771) give different 
reasons, but nowhere is there the slightest hint that the Armenians who were opposed to 
Hetoum and Leon for religious reasons were in any way responsible for their murder. 


Ch. XVIII THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIA 659 


literature. Various members of the house of Lampron figure 
prominently among the authors of this period, both as original 
writers and as translators, and it is worthy of note that some of 
them, like the constable Sempad, were laymen. 

The Armenian rulers founded and endowed numerous monas- 
teries. It can be seen from the ruined remains, as well as from 
literary evidence, that these monasteries and churches, and even 
the military constructions, did not compare favorably with the 
splendid monuments erected in the past in Armenia proper, but 
some of the foundations of this period are interesting from a dif- 
ferent point of view, for instance, the hospital founded by queen 
Isabel, where she. herself often tended the sick and the poor. If 
architecture did not develop greatly in the Cilician kingdom, the 
minor arts on the other hand attained a degree of excellence. The 
illuminated manuscripts of this period, which rival in. quality the 
best products of medieval art, are also outstanding witnesses of the 
remarkable resilience of the people, for many of the finest examples 
were produced in the most adverse circumstances, and at times 
when the very existence of the country was threatened.